Charity gets government fund to help pupils affected by domestic abuse

The Home Office last Friday (21) awarded charity Operation Encompass £163,000 for its initiative to support children who attend school following a domestic abuse incident.

Operation Encompass is a system which ensures the police contact a school before the next school day when one of their pupils has been exposed to domestic abuse.

This helps a school’s safeguarding team to provide proper assistance and support to the student.

The scheme, Operation Encompass, is the brainchild of headteacher Elisabeth Carney-Haworth and her husband David, a former police officer.

“This funding from the Home Office will assist in ensuring that Operation Encompass is embraced fully by all police forces and that the partnership between the police and schools will enable them to work towards providing trauma-informed support,” she said.

David, a former police sergeant at Devon and Cornwall Police, echoed similar sentiments adding that the funding will help this scheme to be in “every force, in every school, for every child. Our children deserve no less.”

The scheme currently operates in some form in 33 forces across England and Wales.

The funds provided by the Home Office will support the rollout of the initiative to all forces and allow Operation Encompass to carry out an audit of existing systems to find out its effectiveness.

Praising Operation Encompass, minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, Victoria Atkins said the system has demonstrated how a simple solution can support so many children.

“It is heartbreaking to think that a child’s education is suffering through no fault of their own. By police and schools having this system in place we can ensure these youngsters have the immediate support they need.

“This shows the government’s commitment to providing help to children affected by domestic abuse and we will build on this as we introduce the draft Domestic Abuse Bill.”

The funding is the latest in a series of steps the government has taken to support children who are exposed to domestic abuse.

In July, the Home Office launched an £8 million fund for projects designed to help children who have been directly or indirectly affected by domestic abuse.

According to statistics, one in five children in the UK are exposed to domestic abuse and those affected by this horrible crime are four times more likely to go on and experience or perpetrate domestic abuse later on in life.